The old stories should be told... not for the sake of pride nor registration, but for those who wasn't present or too young to've experienced the battles of the old "titans" of AO...
so here is a draft of a story from Inner Circle and our involvment in the beginning of the Notum wars.
...Women, how they haunt this story.
When I first began writing Dengs story, I thought it would be a tale of men; a chronicle of blades and beams, of battles won, frontiers made and of broken alliances, ruined treaties and destruction of guilds, as I believe that is how stories are told on Rubi-Ka. You know… the honor issue and all.
Man have a tendency of trying to create history, but in this very one, they brought Rubi-Ka low in their attempt. There were many of us… we thought Rubi-Ka lay at our command for we were warriors, at least some of us… But all in all, it was the woman who did the greater damage, and I suppose in some ways this is also their tale for a woman was the nemesis of organisations.
“Who the...?” Most of you will demand when you read this.
Those of you who fought with me, are already aware that I don’t like to fire my specials too early in the battle and I don’t intend on giving anything away too early here either.
I reside in the monastery outside house Haiku under the protection of The Dojo where I write “his” story. I write at the command of a few young Martial artists, too young to have known the former President of IC, though he himself rarely used the title. If I’m not mistaken, he’d use “teddy” or something along that line.
The tale grows a bit darker now and difficult to tell. Sometimes, when I think of him, I see his noontime as a sun-bright day, yet the clouds came faster than before. At times we didn’t see the sun at all. It happened during the Notum Wars, when Clanners, whom Deng had thought as enemies, but always had respected and received respect from, swiped counties with fearsome attacks and more than before had focused on taking over IC-controlled land.
“Men are fools”, the young female MA drily spit out.
“They are, from time to time, but Deng was an Atrox” I reply with a smile
The young MA, now terribly offended that an old trader could even begin to think about correcting someone of her house turns her nose roof-high, makes a sniffing noise and looks at me as a child trying to say “I was just testing you”.
I continue the tale…
It was a season of blood, a season of retribution. Lordbedwyr and his clan Yagyu had fled south after the attack on the Belail Forrest village next to the Mining compound. Deng and his generals would dearly have loved to pursue him, but other clans were now the greater danger. They had advanced far and reports didn’t promise good times. Some of the soldiers and warriors of Inner Circle was on the breach of collapse. Had it not been for the assistance of Project Eden, Project Starlight and The Dojo, Deng would’ve had more than just a gaunt on his face. He wiped his staff, the “punisher”. “Next spring… they will be back”
“Don’t be absurd. We’ll have enough men to fight back next time” Amberrai said. She was a young woman, graceful in her beauty, delicate in her steps. Her past as Clan didn’t exactly make it easy for her to take her steps out on the battlefield… She was fond of hunting and talking for ages about something as trivial as a leet and how on earth it was born with its vocabulary. Grontha, Antashi and I, Generals of Inner Circle were present in High-rise 6, our base of operation inside Omni-Trade district discussing how to survive the coming season as it seemed people were deserting to clan as they seemed superior in number and equipment. At the discovery of Tarasque in the dungeon, few realized what treasures her bowel contained and that the skin, filled to its peak with high concentration nano-energy, made armour beyond anything we’d used up till then. Summoning of the Dragon wasn’t a problem in itself, but the availability of getting there for both omni-guilds and clans led to a constant front there. Shtylez, being one of the few Deng would turn to for advice and fight-practice described the entire tarasque-incident as “Another god damn gold-f*ckin-fever” (note, Shtylez is hard to misinterpit. Clear in his messages) and that’s exactly what became of Camelot… It might’ve been the salvage of our cities as clan guilds were busy fighting within over the precious pieces of the dragon. We thought things would stay that way… but then came the discovery of Notum…
Notum, a mineral so excellent and flawless that it creates excellent armor, enhances weapons and fortifies the precious defence walls. The only problem – it has to be mined in large scales and can only be found in certain places. The mines close to Omni-1 had been fairly safe and I suppose we could’ve lived on that, but when oceans of quality-notum was discovered in unoccupied territories and border-counties, the fights began again.. Tarasque was no more important. The notum had bred Mercenaries, powerful chiefs that defended valuable new weapons, Dengs “Punishment Rod” being one of them. Soldiers would get their hands on Terrible Hellfuries and Hellspinner cannons no one really knew how to replicate. Special guns, Armour and Nanoprograms was found, but perhaps most significant of all, was the Diamond matrix mesh, combined with a blade from the Mantis Queen… the Enhanced Queen Blade was born, and Enforcers entered a new era of domination on the battlefield. New armour that would keep them alive combined with this new weapon allowed even the amateur enforcer to claim his kills on the battlefield.
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“Get on with the story and skip the enforcer rubbish”, the young MA demands. I turn to her wondering if I am going to tell her about her mothers involvement in this story… Chronita, spiritual and tactical leader of majority of the Martial Artists on Rubi-ka. Even on Clan-side she was respected and well known. How the frag did she end up with a daughter like this? I think I’ll give the story some continuance.
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Deng approached me as I was testing out guns in the Holo-world.
We met here many years ago. He had joined the Omni-tek forces where I’d been assigned to duty as senior officer and instructor training new sodliers. We’d grown in rank and order side by side and had a somewhat depending relation. I wouldn’t do anything huge without consulting him first, he never went to war without having a talk with me… as a reality check to confirm that he was the “good guy”. If there was anything he ever needed, it was reassurance that he was the “good guy”, not a ravaging beast who made peoples life miserable.
“We’re too few” he said with a low and sighing tone. “New fighters have come”, I corrected him. I always thought we would be ok when our wing reached 100 fighters, which was the directive Omni-tek had given us. We were supposed to gather this amount to form a frontline-wall, but the calculations were based on Clan-numbers 2 years ago, and we knew they were far more now. “We have, what… 30 experienced fighters, only a few well equipped”. I was somewhat insulted of this statement. I’d taken my pride in producing and equipping the guild with Carbonium, Dragon and CAS armor of excellent quality.
“training the rest of the youngsters will probably make us ready in accordance to directives, but both you and I know that we’ll be 1 omni for every 2 or 3 clanner on the battlefield, and most of them have tasted more than one fight” he said looking at me. I saw where the discussion was going, and I didn’t like it… We’d discussed merging and diplomacy for a long time. Diplomacy is a delicate matter on Rubi-ka. First of all, we are not allowed to make deals with clans without omni-tek forming the deal (they usually look like this: “Clan surrender to be executed, omni take over area” which, of course, is nothing but a beaurocratic way of avoiding any communication between clans and omni), so if we want to do that, it will have to be done secretly and all we rely on is a handshake, which is more than enough for a true warrior, but sadly… the dune of clan/omni treaty-history are marked with treason and betrayal to the extend that some say trust will never grow there again.
The other option is Merging with another guild, which we are allowed to do at any time, but still it has been tried before.. twice, and neither have succeeded and it’s considered a last option.
“So…” I said. “Where are you sending me, then?”. “Clan Yagyu”, Deng said. I felt the blood pressure skyrocket as I repeated his words to check if my ear implant was messed up.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Baffy… I have had contact with this clan for a long time, and I know that you are respected in their halls as well. I have arranged a meeting with you and Lordbedwyr in 2 days. You will go there, and you will bring Zemanova along”. I looked at him with begging eyes. “I’ll attend to the training and recruitment of new soldiers myself while you handle these little things” he concluded and started walking towards the exit.
“Little things?” I shouted. “Little things?!?”. He turned to me and said as he usually says before we enter a battle “There are worse ways of dying”, just this time, without his usual barbaric grin. I always pictured the two of us end our days together back to back cut down by a barbaric hoard of clanners.
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The young MA looks at me, clearly curious as to what happened to me, almost as she’s not sure if I survived it… Obviously, I did survive to tell this tale, and the meeting with Lordbedwyr in Newland Desert ended up with some sort of agreement… he even brought the word further into clan camp and we had an easy winter. Our mining operations went smoothly. Now what we agreed on, is another thing… and as I said, I like to save the candy for the finale. I can tell you that my companion and I bonded in a very special way on that trip…
“There are worse ways to die?” the young MA said. “and better” I said curtly. She gazed at me for a second and decided I hadn’t earned her respect just yet, so she waved her hand at me to continue the tale.
